Stores In Texas Spark Outrage Over What They're Doing To Flood Victims

By: Christopher Feery | August 31, 2017

Some stores in the Houston area have come under fire for what they're doing to people in need.

If you take advantage of people and profit from it, there can be serious questions about your morality that deserve to be examined. If you do that during times of crisis, then there’s no examination needed. You’re an abominable and morally corrupt individual, and no amount of remorse or crocodile tears after you get busted will cause that to change. As the New York Post shares, there have been some disturbing signs that things of this nature may be happening in the wake of Harvey, but we’ll hold out hope that they’re just serious lapses in judgement that will be immediately rectified.

Basic supply and demand theory tells us that prices will rise when goods are in short supply, and that the opposite will happen when there are more goods than takers. Many folks understand this, and they understand they’ll have to pay a pretty penny when the items they need are scarce. However, there’s a gigantic difference between high prices and outright price gouging. We’re seeing too many examples of the latter down in Texas in the wake of Harvey, and stores in the area would be wise to knock it off before they face further consequences.

Outrageous examples include gas stations charging as much as $20 for a gallon of gas, and a business that charged close to $100 for a case of water. Yes, a case as in 24 bottles. One photo that was making the rounds showed a case of water at Best Buy being sold for $43. A company spokesman claims that was due to a pricing error.

“Not as an excuse but as an explanation, we don’t typically sell cases of water. The mistake was made when employees priced a case of water using the single-bottle price for each bottle in the case,” the spokesman said on CNBC.

Be that as it may, stores in the area had best clean things up. In addition to destroying their own reputations, they risk steep penalties.

“Those caught price-gouging face steep penalties — $20,000 or up to $250,000 if the victim is 65 years or older, state Attorney General Ken Paxton told the station,” the Post reports. “These are things you can’t do in Texas. There are significant penalties if you price gouge in a crisis like this,” Paxton said.

Harvey is not the first natural disaster that has led to such outrageous behavior, but the good news here is that it’s being called out right away. As amazing as it may seem to others, there are folks out there that prey on vulnerability and allow profits to rule the day at all costs. The same thing will happen as cleanup efforts begin and contractors begin plying their wares, and we’ll hope that the contractors are called out and exposed as well. Eventually, we can only hope that the instances will be few and far between.